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member of their family, since the face was said to be unrecognisable. However, I was interested to see those hands and feet.
    ‘There, citizens.’ The pageboy indicated the outbuilding where the body had been put. He was clearly unwilling to go near the place himself, so I took pity on his youthful sensibility and Junio and I walked forward on our own.
    The door was already ajar as we approached, and the swarthy figure of Marcus’s chief land slave could be seen inside, standing guard beside a sheeted bundle on a plank. I knew the fellow slightly. His name was Stygius: a big man, strong and powerful from long years in the field, with muscles and sinews that stood out like knotted ropes, and speech as slow and deliberate as his walk.
    He came out to greet me with a worried frown. ‘Citizen Libertus, I am glad you’re here. The mistress told me you were on your way. And you too, citizen, of course.’ He nodded in Junio’s direction with a vague, respectful air, twisting his fingers together in front of his leather apron and bowing to us both. ‘The mistress told you what I noticed about the skin and nails?’ He avoided looking us directly in the face. Life had taught him to be subservient.
    ‘She did indeed, Stygius,’ I said. ‘And I was impressed. It was very intelligent of you to notice it. Many people would not have spotted the significance of that.’
    His face was browned with sun and wind, but I would almost swear he blushed. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, citizen,’ he said and stared down at his hands.
    I realised that it was probably not often that anyone commended Stygius for his intelligence – it is not something expected of a land slave on the whole. Strong arms, a strong back and an unwavering application to the task in hand, however dreary and repetitive, were the important attributes, even for a chief man like Stygius. I felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him, labouring in the fields from dawn to dusk, at the mercy of all extremes of sun and rain: he was slow of speech and movement, but it was clear his mind was sharp. ‘You did very well,’ I added, and he flashed me a shy smile.
    My praise had given him more self-assurance, it appeared. ‘If it was just a peasant I would have left her lying here,’ he said, raising his head to look at me, and lumbering into confidential mode. ‘But I thought that, with it being a wealthy girl perhaps, there should be someone with her in case the parents came. Give her a bit of dignity, at least, by standing guard over her instead of abandoning the body like an empty sack. The mistress did not send a household slave to keep vigil here, so I thought I had better do the job myself. I’ve left my deputy in charge out in the fields.’
    He was half apologetic, and I understood. Had I been Stygius, I too would have found it more attractive to be here – keeping guard over a quiet body in a warm dry shed – than bending over the spade and hoe till darkness fell and urging labour out of other weary men. ‘I’m sure your intentions were sincere,’ I said, and followed, with Junio, as he led the way inside.
    ‘There you are!’ He pulled the door half closed behind us as he spoke, as if to exclude other prying eyes and afford the corpse a little privacy. The room was heavy with the smell of death.
    The lack of window-spaces made the place quite dark, even though it was scarcely past midday, and it took me a moment to become accustomed to the gloom. When I did, I knew what I should see – I had been there once or twice before. It was a longish, narrow room, with stone walls and a floor of trodden earth. Sometimes there were boxes of funeral herbs about, but today it was empty except for the makeshift bier on which the body lay, covered with a piece of unbleached linen cloth. A pair of candles burned at head and foot, each supported by an iron spike, and these threw eerie shadows on the shrouded form.
    ‘You have prepared the body for burial?’ I asked. I